Welcome to Make Ours Marvel, the weekly show where Michael Kaiser and Jon M. Wilson read chronologically through Marvel Comics’ spandex adventures and discuss their thoughts with little to no authority.
In this episode…
- Sgt. Fury #11 (Oct 1964)
- Strange Tales #126 (Nov 1964)
- Amazing Spider-Man #18 (Nov 1964)
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Amazing Spider-Man #18 was completely crazy town! There’s been plenty of off-beat issues of Spider-Man over the years, but doing one back in the 60s is dumbfounding! It breaks all sorts of rules for a superhero comic. But it works.
I kept waiting for Michael to mention “Peter’s trying to make money off of being Spider-Man again!” Did I miss it? If not, you bet your sweet bippie he was! And yet, he also didn’t have fall into the cliche of “With my powers, I could just steal the medicine for Aunt May,” which more recent comics would do. It really made me glad not to see that for Peter’s sake. That would have been a real low, so it’s a good thing Stan and Steve didn’t go there.
Oh, about Mary Jane! I know there’s been some retconning since these early issues, but my narrative is that MJ is not that keen to meet Peter either.
Anna: “You’ll love Peter. He’s very smart, and has a great personality.”
MJ: (great personality? Lord, no.) “Oh. Gosh Aunt Anna, uh, I don’t feel so well. Yeah, that’s it. I’m, uh, too sick to go out. Right.”
Until the next time Aunt May’s in the hospital, well maybe the next after that, or the next after that, make mine Make Ours Marvel.